Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Series: TOS Original Airdate: 1991-12-06 Production Number: 006 Year: 2293 Stardate: 9521.6 Story by: Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Konner, and Mark Rosenthal Teleplay by: Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn Directed by: Nicholas Meyer "The battle for peace has begun." The Chancellor of the Klingon Empire asks for peace negotiations with the Federation, but factions on both sides try to prevent the two adversaries from reaching an understanding. Summary West presents Operation Retrieve.]] SUMMARY Memorable Quotes Spock: "There is an old Vulcan proverb: 'Only Nixon could go to China.'" Spock: "An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - must be the truth." Federation President: "As I imagine this work will occupy us throughout most of the week, it would be my hope that the delegations could return to their capitals to implement the provisions of Phase One no later then the first of next month." Spock: "If I were human, I believe my response to such an order would be Go to Hell." Spock: "I've been dead before." Chang: "Tell me, Doctor. What is your current medical Medical status?" Doctor McCoy: "Well, aside from a touch of arthritis, I'd say pretty good!" Background Information * Original plans for the movie had Kirk married and all members of the main cast scattered around to different jobs. Uhura was a radio show hostess, Scotty a teacher and Sulu a taxi driver on some backwater alien colony. Budget limitations forced to leave all this out from the movie, and the scene at Starfleet Command was used instead. * An early storyboard draft featured the HMS Bounty in Spacedock being disassembled by Starfleet engineers. * Lt. Valeris was originally intended to be Lt. Saavik, but the scriptwriters decided later that it was out of character for Saavik to be a traitor. * Rene Auberjonois' role as Colonel West was cut from the theatrical release, as Gene Roddenberry was uncomfortable with ideas that were presented in his scenes. The scenes were later restored for the home release. Auberjonois would later play Constable Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. * Many of General Chang's quotes and the subtitle, "The Undiscovered Country," come from Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy, by William Shakespeare. Chang also quotes from "Richard III", "King Lear", "The Merchant of Venice", and "Henry IV, Part II". * If you could see a clear picture of General Chang's eyepatch, you'd see Klingon symbols painted on the heads of each rivet (the makeup artist painted them on for fun, though they were never really intended to be seen). Although no clear scene from the movie shows them, they are seen on one of the movie posters. * Nichelle Nichols objected to the scene in which the crew desperately searches through old printed Klingonese translation dictionaries in order to speak the language without the standard universal translator being used. It seemed more logical to her that Uhura, being the ship's chief communications officer, would know the language of the Federation's main enemy, or at least have the appropriate information in the computer. However, director Nicholas Meyer bluntly overruled her. * Most of the Enterprise sets were redresses of Enterprise-D sets. ** Kirk's and Spock's quarters (Data's quarters) ** Transporter room (Enterprise-D transporter room) ** Sickbay (Enterprise-D sickbay) ** Laboratory (Beverly Crusher's office) ** Officer mess hall (the dining room, redress of Enterprise-D observation lounge) ** Main Engineering (clear redress of the Enterprise-D engineering. They simly replaced the display graphics and repainted some surfaces.) ::These sets had been in turn recycled by TNG from the first three movies. The TNG warp core was a complete redress of the first movie's plasma conduits, Data's quarters a redress of Ilia's quarters. Even the sickbay from TNG was recycled from the movies' sickbay. * The office of the Federation President is a redress of Ten-Forward. A viewscreen is located in place of the art ornament behind the bar counter, and the walls are painted with some shade of brown. The easily noticeable windows are covered with curtains, and a view of Paris first seen in "We'll Always Have Paris" is visible through them. * Gene Roddenberry saw the movie three days before he died. * Uhura originally had a very racist line "Would you let your daughter marry one?" (that is, a Klingon), but the line had to be cut because she absolutely declined to say it. * Chekov's line "Guess who's coming to dinner?" was also originally Uhura's, but Nichols considered it also to be racist and declined to say it. The line was moved to Chekov. *Rand was supposed to be the character that wakes up Sulu to inform him that Starfleet was looking for the Enterprise instead of Christian Slater. Slater was a huge fan of the show and his mother - Mary Jo Slater, the movie's casting director - petitioned heavily to get him a part. * The kitchen scene was quickly written to the movie just to demonstrate that you can't fire a phaser onboard the ship without triggering an alarm. (A mysterious thing is that the kitchen has a locker full of phasers. Maybe it's a tactically important part of the ship?) * The blue food at the dinner scene was so disgusting that actors had to be bribed to eat it. * The Enterprise has some strange upwards-sliding doors. Nothing wrong with them, but when they are opened they will also cut the flow of whatever is moving through the pipes running along the ceiling of most of the corridors. * On the bridge, just before the first torpedo was fired at the Klingon vessel, there were about four extra bridge crewmembers, one, of which, was already sitting down. After the first shot was fired, when everybody was trying to find out what had happened, out of nowhere, there was enough bridge crewpeople to fill about eight more seats. * Star Trek VI was adapted into novel form by Jeanne M. Dillard. * A comics adaptation was written by Peter David and drawn by Gordon Purcell and Arne Starr * Although this is the final Star Trek film to feature the entire Star Trek: The Original Series cast together, only Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) makes her final Star Trek appearance in this film. Links and References Cast *William Shatner as James T. Kirk *Leonard Nimoy as Spock *DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy *James Doohan as Montgomery Scott *Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov *Nichelle Nichols as Uhura *George Takei as Hikaru Sulu *Kim Cattrall as Valeris *Mark Lenard as Sarek *Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand *Brock Peters as Cartwright *Leon Russom as Bill (The Commander-in-Chief) *Kurtwood Smith as Federation President *Christopher Plummer as General Chang *Rosanna DeSoto as Azetbur *David Warner as Gorkon *John Schuck as Klingon ambassador *Michael Dorn as Colonel Worf *Paul Rossilli as Brigadier General Kerla *Robert Easton as Klingon judge *Clifford Shegog as Klingon officer *William Morgan Sheppard as Klingon commander *Brett Porter as General Stex *Jeremy Roberts as Lieutenant Dmitri Valtane *Michael Bofshever as ''Excelsior'' engineer *Angelo Tiffe as ''Excelsior'' navigator *Boris Lee Krutonog as Lojur *Christian Slater as ''Excelsior'' communications officer *Iman as Martia *Tom Morga as the Brute *Todd Bryant as Klingon translator *John Bloom as Behemoth alien *Jim Boeke as Klingon General #1 *Carlos Cestero as Munitions man *Edward Clements as Young crewman *Katie Johnston as Young Martia *Doug Engalla as Prisoner at Rura Penthe *Matthias Hues as Klingon General #2 *Darryl Henriques as Nanclus *David Orange as Sleepy Klingon *Judy Levitt as Military aide *Shakti as ADC *Michael Snyder as Crewman Dax *Rene Auberjonois as Colonel West *Douglas Dunning as Klingon (uncredited) *Alan Marcus as Man who killed Klingons (uncredited) *J.D. Walters as Klingon (uncredited) *Eric A. Stillwell as Extra References "Adam and Eve;" Beta Quadrant; Klingon Bird-of-Prey; Marc Chagall; chameloid; Chancellor; cloaking device, Klingon; coffee; Davis (Crewman); dilithium; Earth; ''Enterprise''-A, USS; ''Excelsior'', USS; gravitational unit; Hamlet; Khitomer; Khitomer Accords; Khitomer conspiracy; Klingon Empire; Klingons; Klingon Neutral Zone; ''Kronos One'', IKS; magnetic gravity boots; neutron radiation; Richard M. Nixon; Operation Retrieve; Paris; plasma; plasma exhaust; Praxis; Qo'noS; Romulan ale; Rura Penthe; SD-103; Shakespeare, William; Starfleet Academy; targ; Tiberian bat; torpedo bay; United Federation of Planets; D. Wise; viridium patch. Undiscovered Country, The de:Star Trek VI: Das unentdeckte Land nl:Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country sv:Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country